Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: “We Are In A War For Our Future And We Should Behave That Way”

Last night, when we looked at why John Roberts is in contention for “worst Chief Justice ever”— imagine someone as bed as Roger Taney— one significant item was the Citizens United case. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse— the state’s brainy former Attorney General— had something to say about that case and its ramifications as well yesterday. His thoughts are worth taking to heart:

Our current situation should give Dems a rejuvenating chance to focus better on fixing what’s gone wrong in America. We face three huge threats: persistent internal attacks on our democracy, unbridled climate upheaval, and a captured Court with some deeply corrupt justices.

Behind each threat is dark money; massive anonymous political spending by special interests who hide their identities from the public. 

The political class has reoriented itself to this new reality, pivoting to the big secret spenders. Voters notice they’re not so important anymore. 

An entire dark-money ecosystem has been spawned, with front groups, ‘Donors Trusts,’ coordinating 501c3s and c4s, and superPACs. 

This whole filthy bestiary of influence is new (or refocused and expanded) since Citizens United.

It didn’t used to be this way; it doesn’t have to be this way. Democrats keep voting to get rid of dark money, and Republicans keep voting to protect dark money, but voters have no idea. We basically haven’t told them. 

Which is pathetic because voters hate dark money with a passion, Republicans, independents and Democrats alike. Polling is off the charts. 

(When done, that is; too often pollsters blow the dust each year off their polling questions from the ‘90s and this question doesn’t get asked!) 

Climate change is out of control because of a massive dark-money politics and propaganda operation run by the fossil fuel industry. 

Before Citizens United, climate was a bipartisan concern (see McCain 2008 platform); fossil-fuel dark money killed bipartisanship. 

The Court was captured by a dark-money operation funded by creepy polluter billionaires and managed by their creepy minion Leonard Leo. 

The ‘amenable’ justices are instructed via coordinated flotillas of dark-money amici curiae, with correlation near perfect between instruction and result. 

Republicans are complicit in all this because the dark money behind these schemes is also the dark money billions behind their political operations. 

It’s a trifecta; dark money is behind climate denial, Court capture and corruption of Congress— one crew, one plan, one cancer in the body politic. 

Democrats should be blowing the whistle on the whole dark-money rot.

It explains so much, it has obvious villains, and it has the added benefit of being true. 

We are in a war for our future and we should behave that way.

I asked some of the candidates who Blue America endorsed for state legislative seats how they feel about the ideas Whitehouse is bringing up. The first who responded were a quartet of Florida progressives, starting with Jackie Kellogg, who’s taking on a Republican in a blue Miami seat that the state Democrats have let fall into GOP hands. “If there was any doubt about the smoke and mirrors tactics of the dark money at play,” Kellogg told us, “the recent Chevron Deference decision basically give full permission for corporations to define clean air and water. Notice when Trump was asked about the Paris Climate agreement, all he said was I only care about clean water...I guess that would be water from a plastic bottle?”

Alan Grayson has been singing this tune for decades! So it was no surprise when he replied that “I agree completely. As the New Testament says, ‘No one can serve two masters.’ (Matthew 6:24.) As Bernie Sanders says, it’s the Money versus the Many— and what I see is that Dirty Money is winning, in a landslide. The System, on both sides, simply does the bidding of Dirty, Filthy Money. In many places, the voters aren’t in the loop anymore. They are regarded as the receptacles of propaganda, every four years or so. I used to lead crowds in chanting, ‘money can’t vote.’  Clearly, I was mistaken.”

Ben Braver is running for a Republican-held seat in a purple district north and east of Tampa. This is right up his ally and something he talks with voters about all the time. “Just as the last people alive in the first gilded age have gone, our democracy has once again become ensconced in the shiny trappings of wealth and corruption. The first political rhetoric many from my generation heard was: ‘Corporations Are People Too,’ deserving the freedom to speak and to influence elections via power that few citizens could ever have. The first crisis we felt was our lives bursting with the housing bubble, a direct result of these ‘People’s’ crimes, and yet only one entity (this one actually being a real person) was arrested. My generation knows that we are second to the corporate class who get the rights of a person, but none of the responsibility, and we will not stand for it. The monopolies that control our markets and our government must be disposed of the way they were the first time around. Apple, Standard Oil, Microsoft, American Tobacco, Boeing, U.S. Steel, Robber Barons all and in desperate need of control. They have unified under one political machine designed to produce politicians that will squabble over culture wars, but never address the people's most dire problems. And as this machine chugs along it ravages our environment and working class. As it strips us for all we're good for, as it burns through all the fuel, it heads faster and faster toward its own destruction. There is an ever-diminishing amount of livable space on earth and livable wages for workers, even the richest can't yet be rich without a planet or people. They have trapped all of us in a burning, shrinking, golden casket, but one that we can remove. By reversing Citizens United, by establishing anti-trust laws, by returning power to REAL people's hands we can restore our environment, our economy, and our democracy. 

“The incumbent in my Florida state Senate race,” Braver concluded, "is one of the politicians pumped out by the monopolies' machine to always vote in their interests. He votes for dirty water, fewer protections for workers, darker money, and redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. I am running to take this cog out of the machine and halt it's production of the second gilded age.”

The Jacksonville district Therese Gamble is running in, was drawn for a Republican who calls herself a Democrat and votes with the GOP. Gamble is working to turn that district blue again.

“Dark money,” she told us, "is funding culture wars to distract Democrats from the real issues that our democracy is facing right under our noses. Every anti-social piece legislation being proposed and passed is to support the Republican Project 2025 agenda. As Ayanna Pressley said, 'It is not a threat— it is a promise.' Democrats must transition from a reactive to proactive posture while advocating through continuing the conversation to every constituent in America about the harmful plan of Project 2025 as well as mainstream media personalities supporting Democrats' efforts to expose and call out bad actors…Leo Leonard is at the root of this issue and Democrats need total him out on it, the way Chris Hayes did here:

“We can’t stand by while extremists write the rules for others to follow, and extremists break or change the rules to keep power and control, granting themselves special privileges; it is authoritarianism. Republicans are infiltrating our ranks, wolves in sheep's clothing. Democrats, we must wake up, distinguish facts from fakes, and defend our democracy by repealing hateful and harmful legislation at the local, state, and federal levels; we need to put it on the ballot for the people to decide. We must not retreat or remain silent in this moment. Every taxpayer in America should use their voting power to protect their freedoms and democracy, ensuring the next generation of leaders continue to value and protect democracy and our freedom to choose, not to be forced by the government. As John Lewis said in 2012, 'We must get in good trouble.'  at the 2012 Democratic Convention, watch and listen here…To everyone who wants to expose dark money, pay taxes to invest back into our communities to compete in a tech-driven economy, and protect free of choice, bolster our democracy where everyone plays on an even playing field for opportunities for today and in years to come: Then it is time to GET UP AND GET IT DONE! VOTE EXTREMISTS OUT OF OFFICE IN THIS ELECTION— GET UP AND GET IT DONE, and take your family and friends with you! I hope this will motivate you. It's time to put PEOPLE over profits.”

Please help support these candidates. They are America's hope for the future.